The Improvement
by Jabberwockyjinxes
Summary: "Magic is evil, right?" Merlin asked. "Everyone who has magic should be marked, and most of us should die, and we shouldn't be allowed kids because they could have magic too. They should just lock us up and take away our rights and do experiments and other… other horrible things." He looked up. "Isn't that what you think?" (slow burn, M/A, sci-fi au w/magic.)
1. Chapter 1

**Improvement: Noun, to be improved. The act of adding or removing select genes in a person to rid them of certain deficiencies in order to create the perfect human race. The Improvement is, according to legislation introduced in 2178 by Uther Pendragon, used to 'remove a rare gene from the genome and replace it with harmless DNA; this gene causes a rare disease called the EMRYS condition that causes dangerous abnormalities in the host.' It is a harmless procedure and allows the unlucky afflicted to lead happy, healthy lives and gives their children a chance at a better future.**

"So, are you due for testing?" Arthur asked the man sitting next to him. He didn't respond, so Arthur sighed and shifted, picking up a newspaper from the table. He caught a glimpse of his sister's face- fierce, pale, suffering- and quickly flicked over to the TV page. He could feel the hostile glares of the room on the back of his neck, and tried his hardest to look unbothered.

There was going to be the season finale of a show Arthur liked, _Tintagel,_ the Monday after next. Apparently the girl who wrote the article knew the guy who cut one of the screenwriter's hair, and he said that the main villain was going to be revealed as an EMRYS sufferer. Across the room a skinny guy with balding hair snorted.

"Pure propaganda, that is. You know, you used to be able to get real, proper entertainment before the purges began. Not this government mandated shite."

"Cedric-"

"Don't you see? They're sucking the life out of us. It's all been done before, when people get too caught up their own arses to see what's right in front of them. There are history books you can get, real ones, and they tell you the real stories. This isn't the first time this has happened-"

Arthur couldn't stop himself. "Oh, do you actually believe those fairy stories? I doubt there was ever a time humans were truly so lawless."

The balding man leapt up from his seat, lunging at Arthur. Two people sitting beside him tugged him back, but his nostrils were flaring. "It isn't about lawlessness, Pendragon! It's about what's inside the human soul- and I'm not talking about that EMRYS rubbish."

Arthur stood up from his chair. "Scientists have looked inside our DNA and they know what we're made of. There may have been a time we had to rely on luck to survive the seasons, but that time is past. Accept it."

The balding man slumped back down. "I had much higher hopes for you, Pendragon."

"I had higher hopes for my day than this." Arthur muttered. He thought back to the evening before.

Arthur had been a cop (he hoped he still was one after this whole debacle). He had led a raid on a small warehouse the evening before. They had received an anonymous message telling them to go to the warehouse because there was a group of EMRYS-afflicted insurgents living there, trying to escape improvement. However, once they arrived, Arthur was horrified to see his sister among the crowd.

He couldn't forget the ugly, cowardly squalor that they lived in. That was what happened when the EMRYS gene was allowed to run free. And then he would remember himself flying back as his sister's eyes turned gold and he would feel angry all over again.

There was a time when people had to live with this. Arthur had seen the videos. People used to suffer all manner of horrors. Crime, starvation, homelessness. Three times before his father stepped in the entire world had been at war with each other. Then, a small council of dedicated men and women got together to save the world. They instituted new laws that ensured no one had to go without food, healthcare, or the other basic necessities of life.

Once they had saved the world from disorder and war, they began to work on improving the people. These people should be thanking his father on bended knee. Because of him, they got to back happy and healthy, not afraid and squatting in their own cowardice, as they used to.

Because people feared the afflicted, and rightly so. It was an insidious, chronic disease that attacked the empathy centres of the brain and made them lose sight of who they were as a person. Slowly, they would inevitably turn to violence and crime to satiate their desire for bloodshed. If Arthur did possess that gene (he didn't think he did) he knew he would want it gone as fast as possible.

Once they got the center for Control and Testing of the EMRYS Condition, they would be processed and tattooed to mark them as one of the lucky ones who were given free help. It was a small price to pay for a happy life free of crime.

Arthur felt someone shift into place in the empty seat beside him. The guy was tall, thin, and had a kind smile and blue eyes. If he had been healthy, he probably would have been very handsome, but the disease had taken it from him. He was thin to the point of emaciation, his cheekbones hollow and his eyes hard. Arthur shifted unconsciously into a defensive stance- the man was obviously diseased.

"You're Arthur Pendragon." He said. "You're Uther's son."

Arthur could hear angry muttering throughout the room. He knew his father's treatments were unpopular among the afflicted. He knew the statistics. Depending on how early they noticed the condition, roughly one in four people who underwent the improvement died. However, every single day that number went down, and there was no better way for them to help than to be part of a control group for new and innovative cures.

"So what if I am?" Arthur responded. He looked the man up and down. "I doubt you would be able to afford it on your own, anyway."

The tall man snorted. "What do you know about being 'cured,' Pendragon? Has your father told you the truth about this, or only the little lies he uses so he can sleep at night?"

"You're insane. The lot of you. You can't help it, you've been diseased."

The tall man's eyes seemed to bore into Arthur, and he shifted, uncomfortable. "Is that really what you think, Pendragon? Do you really support an institution that advocates for the killing of children?"

Arthur leapt to his feet again, nervous energy making his whole body taut. "For god's sake, I'm not my father! I'm just a cop, I have a responsibility to keep the citizens of the city safe. And that means keeping them safe from you." He said, pointing at the tall man. "And you." To the balding one. "And, yes, from you as well!" He shouted, pointing at Morgana, who he had tried so hard to ignore. "I swore that I would protect as many people as I could, and if it means risking a few lives in the process, then so be it."

He sat down. The silence rang like a church bell in his ears, loud and all-encompassing.

A little boy huddled close to Morgana. "I'm scared, 'Gana, I don't want to die."

Arthur put his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He stayed that way until a doctor with kind eyes poked his head out the door.

"Number one? You all got your numbers, right? I need number one, Morgause Gorlois?"

A tall blonde woman with lots of eyeliner stood up from next to Morgana. "I'll see you on the other side."

Slowly, people filtered out until it was only him and the tall starving man left. Arthur turned his head to face the other man and opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he wanted to say something but he didn't quite know the words yet.

"When you get to the other side, the people you thought you knew will be changed." The tall man said. "Some of the people here will be your allies, some won't. You want to figure out which is which before you end up with a knife in your back."

"And where do you count yourself?"

The tall man chuckled, leaned in so that all Arthur could focus on was his intense blue eyes. "I'm no cop." A pause, and he was going to throw Arthur's words back in his face, wasn't he. "But I have a responsibility to keep _all_ people safe. Even if it means keeping them safe from you."

The tall man was called away a scant second later, but his words hung cloying in the air like a riddle that Arthur didn't quite want to know the answer to.


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur was called in about five minutes after the tall man. He set down the newspaper he had been scanning and walked into a room with a pretty curly-haired doctor named Gwen.

The entire time, her lips were pursed and she wouldn't look Arthur in the eye. Her exam was quick and perfunctory.

"Have you had any major injuries in the last five years?"

"A gunshot to my left shoulder four years ago and a stab wound near my appendix a year and a half ago."

"Any illnesses?"

"No, nothing." It was true, Arthur had always been in remarkably good health.

"Any medications that might clash with the treatment process?"

"I'm not on any medications." Arthur snapped. He sighed. "Sorry, I'm just- It's been a long day."

"You're a cop." Gwen stated. "You led the raid against these people."

"Yes." Gwen lifted his arm towards her and drew some blood into a small vial labeled with his name.

Gwen turned away. Arthur could see icy anger radiating from her shoulders and understood. Gwen sympathised.

Even after all the research done by various medical boards, even after they had proven that the gene killed people and lowered their quality of living, there were still people who didn't support the removal of the gene. They were few and far between, but they stood by their convictions with unwavering certainty.

"Gwen, why don't they just use genetic testing to figure out if they have the gene?"

"We do." Gwen answered taking his arm and injecting a small metal ball into it, no bigger than the tip of a pen. He grimaced as a subtle, pervasive discomfort settled over him. "The EMRYS gene is governed by simple mendelian inheritance as far as we can tell. To have EMRYS means you are homozygous recessive, so you have two recessive genes. To be fully normal, you are homozygous dominant and have two genes that block out the condition. And some, like you most likely are, are carriers- you have a dominant gene that masks the recessive one, so phenotypically you have no magic, but you could still have a child with EMRYS. We keep everyone here who has a recessive gene, period."

"I get it." Arthur responded. "But why is the process to remove it so lengthy?"

Gwen grimaced. "We've had the technology to remove it the humane way for about ten years, but it's really down to bureaucratic snafus. They've been cutting funding over the last several years. More money goes to the programs to locate EMRYS types than to… to cure them. Lift up your shirt."

"What?" Arthur asked, disoriented by the sudden change in topic. Gwen made an impatient motion with her arms.

"Your wounds. I need to check that they aren't infected or open."

Arthur lifted his shirt over his head. Gwen was quick and efficient, prodding at him and declaring him fit to leave. Just as he left the room to go to the barracks, he turned.

"Gwen?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. You've cleared some things up."

Arthur walked down the hall just until Gwen's office was out of sight. Then he stopped- he could hear the tall man and the other doctor talking.

"-Merlin, you need to be more careful." The doctor insisted. Merlin sighed.

"Don't worry, Lancelot. We've got a plan this time. We've got Morgana and Mordred and we just need allies on the outside to keep up our work."

"Merlin, you may not be alive after this! You've lost weight, you look terrible, and I know you haven't been sleeping well."

"I'm a long way from dead yet, Lancelot."

"But your magic, is it still there?"

Arthur could hear a soft rustling noise from the other room and quickly ducked into an open office. Just as his leg disappeared from view, Merlin's head popped out and back in again.

"I thought someone was listening."

"Gwen sent Arthur on his way about five minutes ago. We can talk freely."

Merlin sighed again. "You know what it's like, Lancelot. There are people counting on me. You and Guinevere do your best, but I need to be on the front lines. And you need to keep safe. How is Guinevere, by the way? Any luck?"

"You noticed, didn't you? Guinevere is going to have a baby. I'm going to be a father, Merlin." Lancelot sounded delighted, but Merlin only sounded trouble.

"That's it. That's an end to your involvement in this whole thing. I won't risk Gwen and her child and I won't risk that child growing up without a father. We'll relocate some funds from the outer colonies, try and get you and Gwen somewhere safe."

"I want to fight, I want to be a father my child can be proud of-"

"You want to be a father that your child can be proud of?" Merlin cut in sharply. "To start, try actually being there."

Silence.

"Let's finish your examination." Lancelot said.

Arthur took that as his cue to slip out of the room, past the open door to Lancelot's office, and into the waiting barracks.

The game was on.

* * *

The barracks were a bland grey place. It was an open room with tri-layered bunk beds placed every metre and a half apart, made to military standard. Most of the bunks were already taken, so Arthur sat down on the one remaining bunk in a far corner. The little boy who had sat beside Morgana earlier now sat on the top bunk. Arthur was only halfway through sorting out his stuff before Merlin came and flopped down on the middle bunk. The man looked downright miserable.

"Mordred, how are you?" He asked. The little boy scuttled down to sit beside Merlin.

"Not as bad as you." Mordred said. "How many did they put in?"

"Three. No more than last time." Merlin replied. Arthur stood up, concerned. He could see Merlin was already pale and sweating.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked. He tried to come off as supremely unconcerned- it wouldn't do to give these people leverage against him- but his concern must have shone through because Merlin stopped sounding so aggressive.

"They put one of those little metals balls into your arm, yeah?" He asked. Arthur nodded, not understanding. "They block out some of the, uh, the effects, of the EMRYS gene. It's very uncomfortable."

Arthur thought he understood. He had felt the oppressive heaviness of his own shoulders, the unease that came with being forced to be somewhat less than you were.

"Are you alright?" He asked. He darted forward and put a hand on Merlin's forehead, drew it back quickly. "You're burning up! We need to take them out."

Merlin smirked, tired. "Aren't you afraid I'll go crazy and attack you?"

"I could take you apart with one blow." Arthur boasted, and Merlin grinned at that, a full, proper grin that lit up his face.

"Oh, Pendragon." Merlin said, propping himself up to look at Arthur. "I could take you apart with _far_ less than that." He turned back over and left Arthur spluttering as he realized the implications of what he had said. He was asleep within seconds.

For five or six hours, Arthur sat there and played games on his phone, wasting time. Then he slept, drawing grey curtains around the bed.

He could hear Mordred's quiet sniffles late into the night.

* * *

Arthur woke up the next day to the sound of the blonde woman from before being dragged away.

"Morgause! Morgause!" Morgana screamed hoarsely. "Come back, you promised!"

Arthur could hear kicking, the distant sound and what sounded suspiciously like sobbing. "It'll be OK, Morgana. Don't worry."

On the bunk above him, Arthur could hear Merlin, huddled next to Mordred. He was telling a simple, silly fairy tale about a dragon, a prince, and his loyal manservant to the boy.

Somehow all the noise grew to a crescendo until Arthur way lying out flat on his back, gasping for air. There were black dots in front of his eyes and he felt a steady buzzing grow in his brain until it was unbearable. He stuffed his fist in his mouth and tried to breathe deeply.

 _I'm panicking._ Arthur thought. He had never felt this awful in his life.

Suddenly, there was a warm hand and his back and a body pressed against his side.

"Calm down, Arthur." Merlin started saying. "It's fine, you're fine, you're not dying. Can you breathe with me? In, out, in, and out. Just like that. That's good, Arthur, you're doing very well."

After what felt like hours, Arthur's breathing evened out and he flopped backwards onto the bed. The noise had stopped.

"Does that happen often?" Merlin asked. Arthur nodded.

"Not for years now. Not since before I started at the police academy."

"You like being in control of a situation. You felt like there was nothing you could do, and you just freaked out. Is that it?"

Arthur shrugged. "I never really thought about it. Just- I like the adrenaline. I like there being problems and I can deal with them and make them better, make _people_ better. I hate being helpless."

"And that's how you feel now. Because like Gwen said, it's probably your own DNA betraying you. It's your own blood."

Arthur sat up. "Like you understand. Don't your people think having the EMRYS gene is good?"

"Yeah." Merlin said. He gave Arthur a very strange look. "It's not like how your father's people spin it. You'll see that soon. It's not dangerous. Well, it _can_ be dangerous. But it can also be beautiful, it can also be something truly amazing."

Arthur smiled. "What, you make it sound like an ability, something corporeal. It can't be that good, it's just a gene."

Merlin hesitated for a long, tense second. Then he grinned easily and held a hand out to Arthur.

"Do you want to see some magic?"

Arthur took a look from Merlin's hand to his face and decided to throw caution to the wind.

" _Hell yeah."_

* * *

 **I forgot to add an author's note to the first chapter, so here goes the important info:**

 **1\. I've written this story before. It was two chapters. I deleted it, rewrote the first two chapters and made it into five, and now I'm posting it again.**

 **2\. It's not a priority for me. I have the first five chapters written, but I can't guarantee frequent updates after that.**

 **3\. I had an ambitious plan at first for this story, then I scaled back. It'll probably be somewhere between 10 and 15 chapters, coming to 15000-25000 words.**


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